Pages

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Pneumonia

Dear Son was admitted to Big Academic Medical Center yesterday for pneumonia. I called the paramedics at 5 a.m. on Friday morning since he was breathing rapidly and shaking severely from the chills. His teacher had contacted me the day before and told me he had a fever of 99.8 in the afternoon and I began treating the fever with Motrin when he got home from school since it was starting to rise and again at midnight. Although I managed to get the fever down, by 4 a.m. on Friday morning he was breathing quite heavily and hard so I thought I'd take him to the Emergency Room. Before I could finish getting dressed, he began to have more respiratory distress, breathing rapidly and shaking severely from the chills. I took his temperature and it was normal (due to the Motrin I gave at midnight) however I became very uncomfortable and called 911. The paramedics arrived and his oxygen saturation was 88-92%, he was ice cold from the chills/shivering and his temp was normal. They took him to the nearest local ER. Upon arrival, they took a rectal temp and it had increased to 104 degrees. They began treating him however I was uncomfortable and requested a transfer to Big Academic Medical Center. Around 7 a.m. I paged Dear Son's doc and then called him at home. He arranged for the transfer. Due to impending storms, the helicopter was not allowed to fly so he was transported via ALS.

Big Academic Medical Center was able to stabalize him and he's now out of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. He has pneumonia. Other test results, include blood cultures, are pending. He is being treated with Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin. He is not vented and on oxygen at 100% so that is good. He seems relatively stable although there is still some difficulty controlling his fever and he continues to work pretty hard at times to breathe. He has been sleeping continuously since this began with the exception of opening his eyes once this morning and once yesterday afternoon.

At the present time, the cause is not known. He has had great difficulty over the past few months with choking episodes at night, that are due to his inability to manage his saliva, which is part of the progressive motor dysfunction and progressive degenerative disease. I had been working with the ENT to exhaust the non-surgical options prior to treating it surgically.

It is my understanding that they will run the full course of the antibiotics so I suspect we may be there a while.

I have extremely limited pc access but I will try and keep you posted.

I came here tonight, because I was thinking about you. Wondering how you were doing, how dear son was doing.

I've thought a lot about you in the last 10 days. My husband is critically ill in the hospital. Some respiratory issues due to the post polio syndrome. We have no answers at this point. We are waiting for admittance to a long term care facility to see if he can go off the breathing machinery ... and to see what changes life has brought us.

We do know that life, as we knew it, is over.

My prayers are with you, been thinking a lot about you this last week.

DM, I am drawn here a few times a week, usually, to check in on you and DS. I dont even know your names, where you live, anything "real" about you. And yet, I care deeply about you and him, and want to know you are well. I checked in an extra time this week, just now, for some reason. Glad I did. While you and DS are always near in prayer, I will redouble my efforts tonight. I hope that he and you both are comfortable, cared-for, and treated with the utmost respect. Give him a gentle hug, and take care of yourselves. Michelle

I'll be praying for you and Dear Son. Given what you've written in the past I'm guessing that Big Academic Medical Center is attached to the University I attend. You will both be in my thoughts as I walk around campus and past the hospitals. God bless you.